Bill Richardson

William Blaine "Bill" Richardson III (15 November 1947-) was a member of the US House of Representatives (D-NM 3) from 3 January 1983 to 13 February 1997 (preceding Bill Redmond), the US Ambassador to the United Nations from 18 February 1997 to 18 August 1998 (succeeding Madeleine Albright and preceding Richard Holbrooke), Secretary of Energy from 18 August 1998 to 20 January 2001 (succeeding Federico Pena and preceding Spencer Abraham), and Governor of New Mexico from 1 January 2003 to 1 January 2011 (succeeding Gary Johnson and preceding Susana Martinez).

Biography
William Blaine Richardson III was born in Pasadena, California in 1947, the son of a Citibank executive of Anglo and Mexican descent and a Mexican mother; he was descended from English Mayflower colonist William Brewster. He grew up in Mexico City, and he was sent to a preparatory school in Massachusetts at the age of 13, later attending Tufts University. After college, he worked for Republican congressman F. Bradford Morse in Massachusetts and for the State Department's congressional relations unit under President Richard Nixon and Secretary Henry Kissinger. In 1978, Richardson moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and ran for the US House of Representatives in 1980 as a Democrat, but he was narrowly defeated; he would go on to serve from 1983 to 1997. He befriended Bill Clinton, who appointed him to serve as his Ambassador to the United Nations from 1997 to 1998 and Secretary of Energy from 1998 to 2001. He oversaw the return of 84,000 acres of land to the Ute Native Americans in 2000, and he overhauled the Department's consultation policy with the Native American tribes. He went on to hold educational positions before serving as Governor of New Mexico from 2003 to 2011, and, in 2008, President Barack Obama nominated him to serve as his Secretary of Commerce, but he was accused of improper business dealings and withdrew his nomination. This scandal damaged his reputation during his second term as Governor.